Automatic telegraph



'-(No Model.)

P. ANDERSON AUTOMATIC TELEGRAPH.

No. 265,297. Patented 001;. 3,1882

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WITNESSES ATTORNEY.

N. PETERS. Pnma-Lzmo m hur. Washinglon. D. c.

UNiTnn STATES ATENT Tricia FRANK ANDERSON, OF PEEKSKILL, NEXV YORK,ASSIGNOR TO THE AMERI- CAN RAPID TELEGRAPH COMPANY, OF CONNECTICUT.

AUTOMATIC TELEGRAPH.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 265,297, dated October3, 1882.

Application filed May .20. 1881. Renewed September 6, 1882.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, FRANK ANDERSON, of Peekskill, in the county ofWestchester and State of New York, have invented a new and usefulImprovement in Automatic Telegraphs;

and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, andexactdescription of the same.

Myinvention relates to automatic telegraphs of that class in which thecharacters representing the letters are formed at the receiving end bymeans of alternate impulses of opposite polarity.

The object of the invention is to simplify the final preparation of thefillet commonly used with such telegraphic apparatus.

My invention consists of improved details hereinafter fully describedand specifically claimed.

The invention is a modification of the form of apparatus shown in anapplication filed by me in the United States Patent Office of even dateherewith, the general principle being the union of pole-changingandimpulse-selecting devices with the simple fillet and drum.

In the accompanyingdrawings, Figure 1 represents afillet, of paper orany equivalent material, perforated with a single row of holes at equaldistances, and adapted simply to guide and regulate the passage of thefillet over the drum. Fig. 2 represents a similar strip having a likerow of guiding-holes and another row at unequal distances, each of thelatter serving as selecting-holes to determine the impulse requiredatany given instant. Fig. 3 represents the surface of thecircuit-breakers attached to or forming part of the drum as if unwound,with the fillet similar to that shown in Fig. 2 lying in proper relativeposition on one side. Fig. 4 represents the record made by the filletshown in Fig. 3. Fig 5 is a view of the end, and Fig. 6 of the peripheryof the united drum and circuit-breaker.

The selecting-holes in the fillet of paper represented in Figs. 2 and 3at l are made and opcrate on the principle set forth in my saidapplication.

The uniform row of holes represented at m in Figs. 1, 2, and 3 may be onone side or in the middle, and is intended to operate in conneotion withpins (0 in the drum, Figs. 5 and 6,

(No mod cl.)

said pins entering the holes in the paper and guiding it in a mannerwell known to those skilled in the art to which this inventionappertains.

The presentation of the alternating currents of opposite polarity,effected in the apparatus shown in my said application by means of holesarranged at equal distances asunder, in this apparatus is caused byspecial construc tion of the drum. Thisconstructionis shown in Figs. 3,5, and 6. That part of the drum marked A (shown more clearly in Fig. 6)is of conducting material, and the pins a, arranged in straight lineabout its periphery, are fitted to enter the holes of the row in in thefillet. (Shown in other figures.) At one side of the roller A, eitherconiiguous,'as shown, or at a distance, (no matter, so long as there iselectrical connection between the two,) is adonble circuit-breaker, D B,which may be made by inserting sections of non-conducting material atequal intervals, or in other well-known ways. The opposite poles of abattery or batteries are connected with this double circuit-breaker bythe pressurerollers l) d, (or springs alone may be used,) which areinsulated from each other, one roller, 7), pressing continually on thesections 13 and the other, (I, on the sections D of thecircuit-breakers. The contact-spaces on circuit-breaker are placed inalternate positions, as shown, so that only one side of the battery at atime is in electrical connection with the drum A.

O, Figs.5 and 6,is a brush or other suitable contact device, that infalling through theper- 8 forations and coming in contact with roller ordrum A allows the impulses to pass to the line. In this case, as in theapparatus shown in my application heretofore mentioned, it is evidentthat while in operation this device would, if there were no perforationsin the fillet, allow none of the impulses to pass to line; or, if therewere no paper on therollerA, every pulsation presented by thecircuitbreakers D B would pass to the line. In one case there would beno record. In the other a succes sion of alternate dots would result. Itonly remains, then, to perforate the fillet with a single row of holesthat act to select certain of the impulses and transmit them to theline. Ice

The record may be dots or dashes, according to the distance apart of theholes, just as in the other apparatus.

If I used the system of recording which utilizes only the positivecurrent for marking, the other serving only to cut off the positivecurrent, the holes 1 might include either an odd or even number of thepulsations presented when a dash or space was wanted; but to adapt it tothe system in which both currents are utilized in the record (as inPatent No. 172,409, of January 18, 1876, and Patent No. 228,585, of June8, 1880) requires that the distance apart ofthe holes for either dots ordashes of any length must be such as to include only an odd number ofthe impulses presented by the circuit-breaker, owing to the fact that iftwoim pulses of the same polarity succeed each other there will be butone mark or record, unless the impulses are much farther apart than isusual in the formation of telegraphic characters.

The diagram, Fig. 3, and record, Fig. 4, have just the same relations asFigs. 2 and 3 in my application aforesaid, and the same description isapplicable to either. For illustration here, it is sufiicient to pointout that the first series of selecting row of holes in line I has eachhole opposite acircnitclosing space either in section 1) or B, and whilethis row continues there will be a continuous series of dots at thereceiving end, as represented directly below in Fig. 4; but when thisseries of holes in l terminates there are no more alternating currentstransmitted and no opposing current to neutralize the last impulse. Thistherefore contin ues to mark the papers, as represented in said figure,gradually failing. If, then, another selecting-hole should occur, andthe space selected in D or a should be in the same section as the last,the two records would run together and destroy distinctness; but if Iplace the next selecting-hole opposite a polechanging space whosenumber, counting from the last, is an odd number the impulse sent willbe of polarity opposite from that last sent, and the recorded mark willbe on the opposite line and distinct.

In forming the letter A of the Morse alphabet, as shown at 1 Fig. 4, twoholes in line Zof Fig. 3 close together, and one opposite acircuit-closing space in B and the other opposite the circuit-closingspace in D next in order select successive impulses ofopposite polarity;

and the second hole, not being'immediately followed by another, tailsout and forms the dash ofA. To keep said dash from tailing out to anuncertain extent, and thus losing its identity, a third hole at an oddnumber, distant as before, and therefore of an opposite polarity fromthat of the last, is formed to cut off the A dash. As this impulsecannot be readily prevented from recording in the doublepen system, thespace is made long enough to form a recognizable space-dash. Thus weget, by selecting opposite impulses, as described, a dot or line torepresentthe letters or characters, and also a dash of greater length torepresent a space. The other characters are made on the same principle,as shown more fully in my aforesaid application.

The row of pins to a a is placed on the roller A in such relation to thecontacts 0 e e, and the perforations l in fillet are so placed inrelation to pin-holes m that when the fillet is placed on the roller Athe selecting-holes l will be opposite either one or the other of thecontacts 0 c, the pins serving to always insure such relation.

I do not claim, in themselves, the pin-holes for guiding the paper, northe production of alternating currents by a circuit-breaker, in View ofthe invention by Siemens and others.

I am aware that a pole-changer consisting of a drum and perforatedfillet has been shown in the British patent of Siemens, No. 1,253 of1868, and I am also aware of the patent granted in the United States toRandall, No. 237,595, of 1881, and I do not therefore broadly claim adrum provided with circuit-breaking contact-sections or a perforatedfillet therewith.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim is- A drum consistingof pole-changing sections D and B and a fillet-carrying section, A, incombination with contact devices bearing directly on sections D and B,respectively, and connected to opposite battery-poles, and with a brushconnected to the line and bearing on fillet or drum A, the parts beingadapted to operatein connection with the perforated fillet as set forth.

In testimony whereof I have signed myname to this specification in thepresence of two subscribing witnesses.

- FRANK ANDERSON. WVitnesses:

RUFUS ANDERSON, COLERIDGE A. HART.

